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Aviation History
1931
1931 - 0498.PDF
FLIGHT, MAY 29, 1931 commercial importance. In airmindedness, the com- mercial interests in Bombay seem considerably superior to the corresponding interests in Calcutta. The very influential Calcutta Chamber of Commerce has not shown any white-hot desire to influence the Government of India to hurry on the coming of the air mail. Bombay, on the contrary, has been seething with indignation at the thought that Cal- cutta was to get air mail services before they were supplied to Urbs Prima in Indis. Not only has Calcutta long been a rival to Bombay ; Karachi is also an old rival which Bombay has affected to despise, but has really feared. So far as air mails are concerned, Karachi has now short-circuited Bombay. If aircraft are to be the regular mail carriers of the future, Bombay sees herself deprived of her historic importance as the mail port of India. That she should be supplanted by Karachi, the " Tradesman's Entrance," as Bombay has called the northern port, is a pill without any gilding, and bitter to swallow. Hence there has arisen in Bombay a very healthy outcry that her air mails must be sent on from Karachi by aircraft, and not left to the tender mercies of the somewhat leisurely Indian railways. She has been accustomed to receiving her mails earlier than any other city in India, by virtue of being the port of arrival for the mail steamers. That she should actually receive them later than Calcutta receives hers, as seems a possibility of the near future, is an intolerable thought to the proud western capital. This outcry on the part of Bombay got as far as the House of Commons on May 11, when the Secre- tary of State for India was asked a question on the subject. Mr. Wedgwood Benn replied that the Government of India hoped that it would be possible to provide an air mail service for Bombay at a date not long after the inauguration of the Karachi-Cal- cutta sector. The extortion of this statement, hedged round though it is by provisos, is satisfactory so far as it goes. It is a good thing to keep on urging the Indian Government to get busy, and not to let it think that when at long last it actually starts the air service between Delhi and Calcutta it has done all that can reasonably be expected of it. The claims of Bombay ought not to be disregarded. When they are in a fair way to be satisfied, it will not be too soon for Madras, the third most important commercial city in India, to begin to urge her claims to consideration. Madras is far from the steamship port of Bombay, and farther still from the air port of Karachi. Her mails badly need speeding up. But Calcutta obviously must come first, and Bombay second. We trust that air services to those two important cities will not be very much longer delayed. • • • During the past week an interesting experiment has been made at Aldershot, namely, the organisa- tion of a complete wing of army co-operation squadrons and its employment in conjunction with a large military force. The latter con- Specialisation. sisted of a corps of two divisions, corps troops, and a cavalry division. Of recent years it has been customary to allot one R.A.F. squadron (of course, one of the army co- operation squadrons) to work with one division of the army. The mobilisation of a wing is somewhat of an unusual occurrence since the war. Wing com- manders there are in plenty, but wings are rare phenomena. In this case it does not seem that the wing was fully organised. Nos. 4, 13 and 16 A.C. Squadrons were united to form the wing, but there seems to have been no special provision of other units such as would be necessary if a wing were to take the field for a prolonged period. Stores were probably drawn according to some temporary arrangement, and doubtless it was not thought worth while to establish a repair section for a wing which was to have an active existence of only a few days. The three squadrons come from aerodromes some- what widely scattered, No. 4 from South Farn- borough, No. 13 from Netheravon and No. 16 from Old Sarum. For the purposes of peace and of manoeuvres it is probably most convenient to con- sider the squadron or a station as a unit ; but in war, wings and even larger commands will have to be organised and to be made self-contained as regards equipment and repairs. The lessons gained by this temporary mobilisation of a wing were doubtless valuable, especially on the tactical side. What chiefly strikes us, however, are some comments made by a military correspondent of The Times in reporting the operations. Alluding to the ordinary relations of one squadron with one division, he wrote: " The officers of both services have become intimately acquainted, and everyone with war experience knows the extent to which such acquaintanceships make for co-operation when on service." Afterwards, when considering the corps cum wing operations, he wrote: " I was struck by the zeal of the pilots and also by the extent to which their work necessitates military knowledge, which can only be learned by experience." We have our- selves been impressed on more than one occasion by the necessity for the pilot of an army co-operation squadron to consider everything which he sees with an army mind. These officers must be specialists. Their work as specialists is extremely interesting, and there can be no doubt that the pilots engaged on it become most enthusiastic about it. The sen- sible conclusion seems to be that they ought to give the whole of their service life to this specialised work, and should not be transferred to another branch of air work. The same can be said of pilots who have to specialise in ship-plane work and flying-boat work. Their minds need to be more than half naval. ^e it does sometimes happen that when a pilot "^ become highly proficient in one of these specialised branches he is transferred by the Air Ministry to a squadron which has to carry out a totally dlfff"e" class of work. The specialised knowledge which^ has acquired is then largely wasted. Probably ^ excuse^ which the Air Ministry would make * ttm it wants as many pilots as possible to be Prof:" o in as many branches of air work as possible.^ 1 ^ the plea would not be very convincing. We au &n the saying about Jacks of all trades. 468
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